that's true chill, but doesn't supermicro also make single cpu boards all the way down to pentium cpus? Foxconn in many ways seems to be the underdog compared to the giant behemoth of asus, but has been making up ground in the last couple of years, so much so that their latest boards are really specy.

You're pretty much bound to find Foxconn components on just about anything including ASUS motherboards. They also make intel and apple mobos. They are not really so much an underdog. Everyone I know who has had a branded foxconn board has hated it however.
I've always been partial to ASUS, Gigabyte and MSI desktop motherboards. MSI only for its usually really good overclocking abilities. I don't really know too much about server boards except Tyan and Supermicro seem to do fairly well in that area.
Also yes, Supermicro designs desktop and server boards but mostly they just focus on the server market AFAIK.

Edit: Even though you said you weren't looking for an ASUS. If you're looking for an mATX, you should check out ASRock boards, ASUS' little cousin but less in price and supposed to be more stable. Good luck with whatever you decide, hope it works out for you!

Chill, I haven't had a Foxconn before, can you tell me why your friends didn't like it? For a desktop board they look good to me.

I'd have to agree with that Asus and Msi are good, particularly when matched with a fast cpus, although I haven't had a gigabyte board so no idea on that one. Similar to MSI is intel and its range of desktop and dual cpu workstations, loads of ocing ability and up to date fsbs and ram. But I really think that the Foxconn could be better than the intel boards for a desktop setup.

With you on the server boards, although I haven't read too many positives about Tyan of late. As soon as you move away from a single cpu setup the only choice seems to be Supermicro/Intel combo. That said SuperMicro has made some good single cpu boards in the past, and I am sure that it could also do the same in the future, although you need a keen eye to choose a winner.

I am not really into Asus that much, but some people just can't live without it, do you know if it is a chick thing, or more of an OCing board?

Quote:

Originally Posted by ephemera

> Supermicro or Foxconn?

Supermicro makes some of the best intel mbds ... but the intent of your questions is not clear.

If are thinking about overclocking, "ethusiast" boards then forget about Supermicro.

ephemera, I agree there are some really solid servers coming out of supermicro at the moment, is there any competition in the server market, what about IBM's PowerPC range or SunSparc architectures?

As far as enthusiast boards go, i guess at one extreme i have seen pics of like super cooled setups with seethrough cases with fluro lights and speakers just like oced cars, but i am not sure if that is me at this stage, i am more of a traditionalist at heart.

I haven't had a Foxconn before, can you tell me why your friends didn't like it?

Well two of my friends have had one. One said the BIOS was consistently really buggy and his board died on him within a few months, said it was the worst motherboard he ever bought. My other friend said he had problems with hardware compatibility and couldnt get a decent overclock. Although this could be his own fault for not researching his buy.
There was also a rumor a few months back how foxconn sabotaged their BIOS not to support ACPI under linux or something like that, though I don't know how true this is but it was a pretty big deal for a lot of people it seemed.
In general foxconn hasn't impressed too many people I dont think, thats not to say they don't make any good boards. If you found one with all the features you need at a really good price, maybe pick it up and let us know.

Quote:

I am not really into Asus that much, but some people just can't live without it, do you know if it is a chick thing, or more of an OCing board?

ASUS pump out the most boards from super high end gaming boards to budget legacy type. Apart from their terrible customer service, ASUS has good design usually, lots of innovation and can usually OC pretty good. Yes some people usually just buy for the name but they know what they're getting.

Just find something that looks right to you and fits your budget. What kind of setup are you going for?

hey chill
oh nooes bad bios bugs in the foxconn mobos!!! you know what i think i read similar things about some of the intel boards, letme think what model was it.... nah i can't remember, but it was supposed to have support ddr3 @ 1600 and all the testers got caught and wasted days trying to get it working heheh.

Asus is ok to good... and a good name as well, got it.

To answer your last question, At the moment just looking around at different systems to see what looks tasty, and I narrowed it down to 2 boards, the classic Supermicro and Foxconn that i didn't really notice until a couple of weeks ago. Great to get a heads up about it, although I can't really see an alternative at the moment as supermicro seem to be churning out duds in their desktop range.

ASUS pump out the most boards from super high end gaming boards to budget legacy type. Apart from their terrible customer service, ASUS has good design usually, lots of innovation and can usually OC pretty good. Yes some people usually just buy for the name but they know what they're getting.

In my experience ASUS customer service is okay, not particularly good, but certainly not particularly bad either ... Just okay (I deal quite a bit with ASUS since we sell a lot of ASUS mainboards and notebooks).

Maybe it's different in the U.S.?

__________________
UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things.

from what i heard, intel is a big oem mbd manufacturer, and as you might expect they make conservative, no-nonsense boards. in my experience intel boards are very reliable and though not quite perfect they just work ... but they are not a good candidate for overclocking.

from what i heard, intel is a big oem mbd manufacturer, and as you might expect they make conservative, no-nonsense boards. in my experience intel boards are very reliable and though not quite perfect they just work ... but they are not a good candidate for overclocking.

I'm not convinced about the intel boards, they make great cpus no doubt, with their cache and core levels growing at the moment. At first I thought that hey if they make tricked out cpus, shouldn't the boards match the chips? But the more I looked into it, the more I found problems, just little things here and there that accumulated over time until even just hearing the word intel board made me feel well green . For me their cpus and chipsets are ok compared to AMD, but the boards are missing something.

I'm not convinced about the intel boards, they make great cpus no doubt, with their cache and core levels growing at the moment. At first I thought that hey if they make tricked out cpus, shouldn't the boards match the chips? But the more I looked into it, the more I found problems, just little things here and there that accumulated over time until even just hearing the word intel board made me feel well green . For me their cpus and chipsets are ok compared to AMD, but the boards are missing something.

like i said they are not perfect. for eg. their layout could be better. on my board the voltage regulators are spread on two adjacent sides of the cpu requiring an omnidirectional heatsink/fan for proper cooling. as a result i can't use the heatsink that i wanted and i ended up buying an antec TAC chassis to improve cpu cooling with the stock intel heatsink (i don't like TAC).

given the price at which it retails, they do a decent job. on a workstation board that costs twice as much its easier to get things right.

BTW, putting half a kilo of copper on a board, using all solid capacitors ... nine 120mm fans in a cabinet... maybe a good gimmick but not good design.

I like Biostar. Both my and my girlfriends' desktops, the most recent x86 machines I've built, have Biostar motherboards with AMD CPUs, and both have performed great. Dunno about overclocking, as I don't bother to.

like i said they are not perfect. for eg. their layout could be better. on my board the voltage regulators are spread on two adjacent sides of the cpu requiring an omnidirectional heatsink/fan for proper cooling. as a result i can't use the heatsink that i wanted and i ended up buying an antec TAC chassis to improve cpu cooling with the stock intel heatsink (i don't like TAC).

given the price at which it retails, they do a decent job. on a workstation board that costs twice as much its easier to get things right.

BTW, putting half a kilo of copper on a board, using all solid capacitors ... nine 120mm fans in a cabinet... maybe a good gimmick but not good design.

Yup, i could be wrong but they seem like a phase board, you know the i used to be into intel boards, but then i got over them and now i'd only build one for my gf/wife sorta thing. That said i'm still into their cpus and chipsets because the amd stuff just looks too sickly to me. Speaking of sickly my AMI bios died today, rip AMI.

It's interesting that your sig mentions VIA C7. What purpose are you looking for this for? VIA's chips/boards are great for some tasks - but not for a general-purpose server or workstation.

The advantages are low power consumption, tiny footprint, and PadLock instruction set. The disadvantage is that it's slow, slow, slow.
Unless low power, a small footprint, and quick AES crypto (my 800mhz C3 computes AES128 and AES256 faster than my Athlon X2 5200+ thanks to the PadLock instruction set) and random number generation (in my experience, and I've run a few tests, the randomness is of a very good quality, and is cryptographically secure) are very important to you, you won't want C3 or C7. If those three things are very important to you, you'll be very happy with a C7 based system.

It's interesting that your sig mentions VIA C7. What purpose are you looking for this for? VIA's chips/boards are great for some tasks - but not for a general-purpose server or workstation.

The advantages are low power consumption, tiny footprint, and PadLock instruction set. The disadvantage is that it's slow, slow, slow.
Unless low power, a small footprint, and quick AES crypto (my 800mhz C3 computes AES128 and AES256 faster than my Athlon X2 5200+ thanks to the PadLock instruction set) and random number generation (in my experience, and I've run a few tests, the randomness is of a very good quality, and is cryptographically secure) are very important to you, you won't want C3 or C7. If those three things are very important to you, you'll be very happy with a C7 based system.

That is another system I am building at the moment as VIA is interesting from a single cpu/typewriter perspective, although when I lost AMI yesterday I had to change the board to the award version (there isn't a phoenix version available), I think it is the SN18000 C7 rather than the SN1000 which could work in conjunction with an SM/phoenix mainboard system although I have to think it through... then i need to get the systems off the ground before writing RND functions, dunno if I'd trust built in rnd or encryption algos???

How long have you had the biostar (bios + star?) systems running and are they reliable?

oh noes, my intel cpus have come down with a flu, looks in bad shape, its barely hanging in there, I might have to stick with C7 for now.

The problem with foxconn was actually that they were using AMI BIOS and AMI was the one that did the sabotaging (foxconn realized about it after all the complaints sent by linux users). There was a "temporary" fix which involved routing the linux option to the Vista acpi table (both OS's support ACPI in the same way).